There was just one question I could ask right now.
“If I stamped out of here right now, Christophe, what would you do?” For once, I didn’t care that everyone was watching.
“You wouldn’t be so foolish.” Amazingly he smiled. It was a slow, very private expression, and it lit up his eyes for a bare moment before it vanished. “If you did,
skowroneczko moja
,
moja księżniczko
, you would not go alone.”
“Now hold on just one moment—” Bruce began.
“Shut up.” There was no joy in snapping that and having someone shut his mouth so fast he almost lost part of his tongue. “Are you serious?”
As if I could even ask Christophe that with his blood burning in me and my mouth still tingling, not just from the
aspect
running through my teeth but also from the taste of him.
One corner of his mouth lifted fractionally. Then his entire face turned solemn. “Completely. Trust me, Dru. First we find Anna. Then we hunt Sergej down. With you fully trained and bloomed, the Order has a chance. You do not have to be helpless anymore.”
What do you do when someone says something like that? Something that jolts through you like a train skidding to an emergency stop. Something that turns everything upside down because it’s so true.
I clutched the coat to my chest. Managed to tear my eyes away from Christophe and look at the rest of them. Bruce looked worried, Ezra somber. Alton had folded his arms and was watching Christophe closely, a line between his eyebrows, his dark eyes snapping and intent.
Hiro looked steadily back at me, his mouth set and his hair stirring slightly as the
aspect
touched him. As if he was urging me to make the right decision.
I didn’t know if there
was
a right decision. But I had to make one. It counted, right now. I had to choose the right thing to do, because Graves was . . .
Oh, God.
I didn’t even want to think about it. But I had to. Because I’d gotten him into this. It was my fault. All of it was my fault, and once I started laying blame I just would not stop. All of it, the whole huge mess, was my goddamn fault.
Time to start doing the right thing, Dru.
With Christophe to help, it might even be possible. It was all I
could
do.
I hugged the coat as I half-turned. I walked down to the end of the table, each step taking a lifetime.
I pulled the heavy carved chair at the head of the polished table out and dropped down into it.
The sighs of relief—Bruce and Hiro, at the same time, with Alton’s a fraction of a second behind—were audible. I tried to ignore it. Ezra folded his arms. Christophe stood still, but his eyes were burning. And fixed on me.
“All right,” I said, hugging Graves’s coat so hard my arms ached. “Where do we start?”